Throw a Lucky Man to the Sea
by musapan
Summary: Meeting Rei Ryugazaki was not an outstanding event, nor was it stupendous in a way that was even remotely befitting what followed. [AU fic]
1. Chapter 1

Meeting Rei Ryugazaki was not an outstanding event, nor was it stupendous in a way that was even remotely befitting what followed.

It was perfectly ordinary as far as meetings go, a little stiff for Nagisa's tastes. There were quite a few Iwatobi students taking the train to the high school, and there was plenty of nervous chatter filling the compartment as first-years speculated on what classes they would be assigned to and who their teachers would be. Nagisa was eager to join in, and had been talking idly with two fellow first-year girls before he'd noticed him. It wasn't as if Rei gave off an aura of importance or possessed a charm that Nagisa was unable to resist. It was because he was alone, (and Nagisa disliked loneliness,) eyes peering down purposefully at a book that was nestled in one hand, its spine bent in a way that suggested it had been read numerous times.

Nagisa scooted down the seat, filling the space to the boy's left. The dark-haired boy didn't so much as twitch, not even an eye-dart in Nagisa's direction.

"Hi," Nagisa said, sitting on his hands and swinging his feet. "I'm Hazuki Nagisa. You're a first year too, right?"

No movement. In fact, there was no indication that the boy had even heard him until finally his lips parted and a disinterested sound escaped.

"Whatever gave it away." came his stiff reply, eyes still set on his book. The sarcasm was lost on Nagisa.

"Your tie!" Nagisa chirped with a laugh. "Are you nervous about the opening assembly? I wonder what class I'll be in. I think that's important, what class you're in. I mean, you have to see those people _every day_, you know?"

"It hardly matters," the boy continued. "Furthermore, please stop talking to me. Your voice is exhausting to listen to."

Nagisa fell into a stunned silence. It wasn't as if he had never been spoken to like that before, or that he expected everyone he met to be overly jovial. He had experienced bullying, but this wasn't that. It was defensive, a reflex, like he had hit just the right spot on the boy's knee to cause the leg to jerk. He didn't seem cruel, standoffish perhaps, preoccupied, but there was nothing to be done about that and it really wasn't any of Nagisa's business. He sputtered an apology and skillfully maneuvered back to his previous companions.

He glanced at Rei Ryugazaki once more, several minutes later, and with his eyes he traced a bubble around the boy that spanned several feet in all directions. If he stared long enough, he was sure that the bubble was real, in some form.

.

.

.

The opening assembly was as boring as Nagisa assumed it would be. Three quarters of the principals speech went completely ignored as Nagisa let his attention wander, too busy looking around at all of the other students and subtly waving to a few people he recognized from his middle school.

Students filed out of the gym, chatting and laughing, and Nagisa once again caught sight of the taller bespeckled boy he'd seen on the train. He was walking in that bubble again, eyes trained forward, jaw set, expression neutral. In moments he was lost in the crowd, and Nagisa nearly plowed over a second-year trying to follow his trail.

"Hey," came a voice from behind him just after Nagisa apologized to the girl he'd almost knocked over, "Hazuki, right?"

Nagisa turned, his face lighting up in recognition. "Tsutomu-kun?" he asked, hoping that he was right. He usually was, he was good with faces.

The brunette smiled. "You _do _remember! Long time no see."

"I haven't seen you since elementary school, how have you been?" Nagisa asked excitedly.

"As good as can be expected. We're in the same high school with _a lot_ of people from the elementary school. You went to a different middle school then most of us, huh?"

"Yeah, and I missed you guys. It kind of sucked sometimes, being the only one that went to a different school." Nagisa laughed awkwardly.

"But now you're at Iwatobi with everyone again, so that's good, right?" Tsutomu reasoned.

"I guess."

"Hey, so," Tsutomu pushed a little closer to Nagisa, directing the both of them into the flow of human traffic. "I saw you talking to Ryugazaki on the train."

"You were taking the train too? I didn't even notice!" Nagisa exclaimed. He frowned. "Who's Ryugazaki?"

"Wa- Seriously, you don't know?" Tsutomu stopped, clamping a hand down on Nagisa's shoulder.

"Know what?"

"That guy you were talking to, mister High-and-Mighty with his nose stuck in a book? That was Ryugazaki Rei. No _wonder _you were talking to him, _shit_, you don't even know about him, huh?"

Nagisa stared at Tsutomu imploringly, large pink eyes blinking daftly.

"Okay, so, that guy was kind of notorious at the middle school. He's as asshole, you understand? He didn't have a single friend. Every girl that ever confessed to him, he shot her down before she could even finish her sentence. Once, a girl left him a love letter in his shoe locker, and he returned it to her _ripped in half_."

"Mmmhmm," Nagisa hummed, arms crossed, "I get it, he's an asshole. That isn't really a surprise or anything, I sort of figured out that bit on my own. He's actually _notorious _for that?"

Tsutomu shook his head, and his face screwed up with the intensity of telling something akin to a ghost story. "No, he's notorious for being _bad luck_."

"Bad luck?" Nagisa repeated, cocking his head.

"Apparently when he was in elementary school he had to switch schools _six times_, because whenever he got close to anyone, really bad things would start happening to them. It's like he's jinxed."

Nagisa shoved Tsutomu in the shoulder, throwing him off balance. "Come on," he laughed.

Tsutomu shoved back. "I'm being serious!" he said earnestly. "He curses people or something! There was talk of black magic shit in middle school, no joke."

"He doesn't really look like the black magic type," Nagisa giggled, shaking his head.

"Hey, I'm giving you friendly advice, here. Leave that guy alone, just don't talk to him." he groaned exaggeratingly. "I mean, girls are stupid, they follow him all over the place regardless of what a dick he is. They dig that whole _aloof, forbidden love_ bullshit. But there's no reason for _you _to go getting cursed, too."

"No one's getting cursed!" Nagisa laughed. "I mean, thanks for worrying, but I wasn't trying to be his best friend, or anything like that. I was just making conversation."

"I bet that went real dandy."

"_Heh…_ Yeah," Nagisa said, his head turning automatically in the direction that he'd seen Ryugazaki walk off earlier.

Bad luck and jinxes were fun to talk about, and convenient to blame everyday occurrences on, but they weren't _real_, not really. And even if Ryugazaki thought it was true himself, wouldn't his abrasive behavior be an effort to keep other people safe? No, it was much more likely that he was your run-of-the-mill, anti-social loner. Whoever he was, it had nothing to do with Nagisa, so there was really no point in thinking about it.

As the sea of students started clearing, Nagisa and Tsutomu (or Hibiki-chan, Nagisa had begun to call him towards the end of their conversation) realized they hadn't yet checked what class they were in. Together they went to view the boards, stuck standing behind a rather tall, broad-shouldered second-year boy who was apparently checking for his friends name when he realized he was blocking their view and apologetically moved aside.

Nagisa found his class just as the taller boy located the name he had been looking for. He seemed pleased as he walked away, and Nagisa wondered if he and his friend had been placed in the same class together.

Hibiki was having trouble finding his class, and so Nagisa helped him look. When it was finally found, Hibiki whooped in joy; he'd been placed in a class with "three of the cutest girls in our grade, how lucky am _I_?" In a flurry Hibiki was gone, explaining that he needed to meet up with some other friends. Nagisa didn't mind. He had things he needed to get done before heading home, anyway.

Before Nagisa walked away, he glanced up at his class once more. He sighed. **Ryugazaki, Rei** blared at him unforgivingly from the paper, several lines under his own name.


	2. Chapter 2

Nagisa made friends easily. He couldn't exactly claim that _everyone _loved him, or that he was particularly popular, but friendships came easily to him. He could talk to anyone about almost anything, for as long as his tragically diminutive attention span would allow.

That being said, Rei Ryugazaki was a mystery to him. Several weeks had passed since his meeting with Ryugazaki on the train, and although they were in the same class, they had exchanged no dialogue. Certainly Nagisa had offered several 'good mornings' to him, but each time he was met with not so much as a glance or a head-nod.

Ryugazaki wasn't _quite _as silent and withdrawn as Hibiki had originally made him out to be; he participated in class and was incredibly intelligent, (Nagisa had been imagining him to be the brooding type that hid himself away in the back of the class in a shroud of dark oppression, like in cartoons,) and he _did _speak to people, but it appeared to be only out of necessity.

At the end of every period, as the rest of the class paired off to chat or tap on their phones, Ryugazaki pulled out a book and Nagisa would see the bubble form a second layer. Only rarely did someone try and speak with him, but when they did, they were met with the same treatment Nagisa had received on the train, and then the interaction was over before it began. It really was amazing, watching it happen. Hibiki was right, though. Nagisa occasionally heard the girls swoon over his cold, stoic behavior, and Nagisa could only wonder when a trait like that had become such a desirable one.

They took the same train home every day after school, and got off at the same stop. From this, Nagisa could only assume that they lived close to one another, not that it mattered. Ryugazaki was every bit as reserved on the train as he was at school, so there was no sense in trying to talk to him. Even when the other people thinned out and they were the only Iwatobi students left, Ryugazaki wouldn't even lift his head until he was at his stop.

It was a rainy May afternoon when Nagisa had his second interaction with Ryugazaki.

Nagisa had not yet chosen a club. Hibiki had convinced him to give the tea ceremony club a try, although Nagisa was incredibly aware that Hibiki was only joining because _one _of the girls he fancied was the club leader. It was surprisingly fun although Nagisa had nearly broken a tea cup on two occasions, and because of this, he had quickly been demoted from 'host in training' to 'junior flower arranger'. Somehow, he had wasted two hours learning how to properly hang scrolls and arrange seasonal flowers, and all he had to show for it was a belly full of matcha and two papercuts.

It was just starting to sprinkle when he left school. By the time he reached the train station, it was downpouring. Nagisa was in a full sprint toward the station, stopping only when he was covered from the rain under the shelter beside the train tracks. Hands anchored on his knees, Nagisa fought to catch his breath, swiping some wet hair from his eyes.

When he had composed himself, he was surprised to see Ryugazaki standing several feet away. He appeared to have also gotten caught in the rain, his hair and shoulders damp as he busily wiped his glasses on the hem of his track shirt. Nagisa was sufficiently surprised that Ryugazaki had joined _any _kind of club; he assumed that clubs existed primarily for social interactions, and it was an understatement to say that being social was not Ryugazaki's strong suit.

Against his better judgement, Nagisa casually moved closer. Ryugazaki didn't seem to notice, or at least he didn't seem to care, so Nagisa shimmied closer still until he was just outside the bubble. He cleared his throat, and this was when Ryugazaki showed the first signs of annoyance.

"This rain, huh?" Nagisa said, feeling distinctly too young to be chatting idly about the weather. "You got caught in it without an umbrella too, Ryugazaki-kun? I didn't know it was going to rain, or I would have-"

Ryugazaki sighed. "I believe I asked you politely before not to speak to me. Nothing has changed since I made that request, so I hope you can continue to honor it."

_It didn't _seem _polite, not then and certainly not now_, Nagisa thought. If this was _polite _for this guy, Nagisa shuddered to think what he was like when he was rude.

"Listen," Nagisa inserted, trying his best to be understanding, "I get it, you don't like me. That's okay, you don't have to like me. But we _are _in the same class, so I think it would be nice if we could at least get along?"

"There's no reason for us to get along. We don't even sit near each other." Ryugazaki was alarmingly good at not making the slightest bit of eye contact when he spoke with someone. To the discerning eye it might seem like this was a superior behavior, as if he viewed everyone beneath him and not worthy of looking at, but Nagisa tended to try and look at things more optimistically. Maybe he was _so incredibly_ socially awkward that eye contact made him queasy?

"You can't make friends with that kind of attitude," Nagisa pointed out with a friendly grin. His elbow was dangerously close to touching the outer lining of Ryugazaki's personal bubble, but this was corrected when the other boy took a calculated step away from Nagisa.

"Friends are not necessary."

Nagisa couldn't suppress a giggle. "What are you, a robot? Everyone needs friends! I mean, what everyone says about you can't be _completely _true." Shit. Well, so much for subtlety.

Ryugazaki turned and fully regarded Nagisa for the first time. Nagisa finally got a chance to look at his face, _really _look at it, and (oh _no_, crap crap _crap_) he was so classically handsome that Nagisa nearly forgot that he had most definitely just offended him. His features were sharp but beautifully drawn together in an arrangement that was probably one-hundred times more lovely when he wasn't scowling. His jaw was strong but didn't distract from the curve of his face that lead to a full mouth that looked criminally soft and inviting. The red frames of his glasses brought attention to his eyes, which were the most lovely shade of deep purple that Nagisa had ever seen.

"And what _does _everyone say about me?" Ryugazaki said, breaking Nagisa from his inappropriate reverie with a painful abruptness.

"Oh, wha-? Um. Well…" Nagisa fidgeted with his tie, pretending to wring water from it although barely a droplet appeared. "You know people, they just talk about all kinds of weird stuff. I sort of heard that you don't have a lot of friends because of a jinx or something." He spoke the last words so quickly they nearly melded into one word. He laughed nervously. "Stupid stuff, really."

Ryugazaki was stonily silent. He glanced away finally, mouth set in a frown. "Don't speak to me again." he said, dangerously close to a warning, and Nagisa opened his mouth to object as he watched Ryugazaki jog out into the pouring rain and disappear along the tracks.

Later, Nagisa saw Ryugazaki from the window, still jogging and absolutely drenched. He watched him until the train had sped so far past him that he was only a dot on the darkening horizon.


	3. Chapter 3

"How do you think you did on the test, Hazuki-kun?"

Nagisa groaned and leaned back in his seat, shutting his eyes. "I think I passed? It's hard to tell, I didn't know a lot of the answers so I improvised some of them."

"We just reviewed that material, too. It would be a shame if you failed the first history test of the year," his classmate said, shifting her weight to sit herself on Nagisa's desk. Nagisa kicked his feet.

"I _knowww_." he whined. "History is boring, though. I don't really care about things that happened before we were born."

"Really? I think it's fascinating," she said thoughtfully.

There were a great many things Nagisa found fascinating, but history was not among them. Not many subjects grabbed him, and perhaps it was because of this that he'd always been an exceptionally average student. Nagisa had a rough time tuning into things that he considered boring. He knew now that he was in high school his academic attitude would have to change, but if he was honest with himself, he didn't particularly care if he qualified for a good college, or _any _college for that matter. _Coasting by_ had always been good enough for him, and thankfully his parents were too busy worrying about his sisters' futures to concern themselves with his less than extraordinary grades.

Nagisa was momentarily distracted by the sound of voices floating from the front of the class. He leaned out of his chair to see three first-year boys from another class gathered around Ryugazaki's desk, none of them looking particularly friendly, the one in the middle leaning his hands on the desk's surface and speaking close to Ryugazaki's face. For some reason, the sight made Nagisa's stomach turn over, from nervousness or anger he wasn't sure. Ryugazaki was effectively ignoring them, putting his things in his backpack as if he hadn't even noticed they were there.

"Hey!" one of the boys shouted, gaining the attention of the entire room, "Listen to me when I'm talking to you, asshole!" He slapped Ryugazaki's pencil case out of his hand, and the tin clattered to the floor and sent pencils and pens flying in all directions.

Ryugazaki stood up and all three of the boys jumped back, tensed and prepared for a fight, but instead he slung his backpack strap over his shoulder and turned to leave. One of the boys stopped him, shoving him hard in the shoulder. "You're not leaving until you apologize!" he said waspishly. Ryugazaki leveled him a glare.

"I have nothing to apologize for."

"The hell you don't!" exclaimed the boy. "You made my sister cry when you rejected her! You think you can just treat people however you want and expect no one to get pissed off about it?"

Before he realized what he was doing, Nagisa was standing up and taking a few steps toward the altercation. "Hey, this isn't solving anything, right?" Nagisa said with a nervous laugh. "Let's not start fighting in the classroom?"

Nagisa could see Ryugazaki's shoulders stiffen as he spoke, but he showed no other sign of acknowledgment. The boy looked past Ryugazaki to flash Nagisa a spiteful look. "This has nothing to do with you, piss off!" he said. Ryugazaki tried to shoulder his way past the boy but he was shoved back again, harder than before. "I'm not done talking to you!"

"Seriously, knock it off!" Nagisa wasn't sure where these words were coming from, or why he was advancing toward Ryugazaki's desk, but it was happening, and it was too late to back down now. He was equally as confused as to why he felt the need to defend Rei Ryugazaki, a person who had not yet spoken a single positive word to him, but his blood was pumping hard and loud in his ears and he couldn't stop now even if he wanted to.

One of the other two boys stepped in front of Nagisa. The boy was much taller than him, (to be fair, most every boy was,) but Nagisa still managed a defiant glare. The shuffling of their shoes on the floor caused Ryugazaki to turn only minimally.

"Are you his fucking friend or something?" the boy asked him, low and menacing, but Nagisa did not allow his gaze to falter.

"So what if I am?" Nagisa challenged, feeling bitter. He _wasn't _his friend. Not by a long shot. At this point, Nagisa was fairly certain that Ryugazaki would rather stab himself in the hand with a ruler than be considered his friend. But admitting his disassociation would only fuel the argument against him.

One of the boys scoffed. "Seriously? You're _friends _with this asshole?"

Ryugazaki cleared his throat, and smacked away the hand that was holding tight to his shoulder.

"We're _not _friends." he said, and Nagisa felt his stomach do another backflip, this time in disappointment and perhaps a smidgen of embarrassment. "Please move yourself out of my way."

"Not until you apologize!" the boy snarled, fisting Rei's jacket and pulling him in close just as the door slid open behind them. Miss Amakata, the teacher from class 2-1 framed the doorway, a hand resting on a slim hip and her brow furrowed.

"What's going on in here?" she asked sharply, as the boys all broke apart as if blown back by spectral hands. Ryugazaki said nothing, roughly shouldering past the boy and exiting through the door before Miss Amakata could stop him.

.

.

.

Nagisa had Ryugazaki's pencil case.

He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with it now that he had it, but regardless, it sat in his backpack, a small dent on the corner of the lid but otherwise unscathed. He had collected it and its contents from the floor after Miss Amakata had reprimanded them for "...whatever it was you were doing, I _know _I heard shouting in here!" Now he supposed he had to return it to Ryugazaki, but that idea seemed daunting.

Ryugazaki wasn't waiting for the train after school. Nagisa assumed he was doing track club activities, or maybe he was just avoiding Nagisa altogether. Either way, the pencil case was burning a proverbial hole in his backpack, and now that this awkward interaction had been delayed, Nagisa thought perhaps it might be easier on everyone if he were to just leave the item in Ryugazaki's shoe locker when he wasn't around.

His train reached its stop, and Nagisa filed out with the rest of the passengers. Home wasn't far off, but Nagisa felt particularly sluggish, and purposefully took the long way home, kicking at pebbles as he went. He didn't feel right. He couldn't place the feeling, but it was something like a sharp despondency that was clawing at his stomach, upsetting the balance of his entire day.

He hadn't been expecting Ryugazaki to dismiss him like that. He had only been trying to help, and although he hadn't expected an explosion of gratitude to result, he couldn't understand why even when faced with bullying, Ryugazaki was so opposed to friendliness. This bothered Nagisa more than it ought to have, and he knew this, but he couldn't chase the thoughts away.

When Nagisa looked up, he was a few streets away from his house. He had forgotten how busy this street was, and inwardly cursed himself for having taken this route home. The crosswalk here was notorious for taking ages to flash green. Stopping at the crosswalk just next to a line of small trees, Nagisa pulled out his phone to check the time.

From somewhere above him, Nagisa heard a faint but persistent hissing sound. Looking up from his phone, Nagisa looked around, the sound continuing in short bursts like a gas leak until finally his search led him to the tree he was standing under. Perched in the tree and hunched over a surprisingly small branch he saw a black cat, it's face scrunched into an agitated scowl and it's ears flat, bright white teeth bared as it hissed and yowled. Before Nagisa could properly react, the cat lunged, and Nagisa twisted around in surprise and fell backwards, phone flying from his hand and landing on the cement with a loud and tragic _crack_.

When he'd come back to his senses, Nagisa could see the black tail of the cat disappearing around the corner of a nearby building. Stunned and inhaling air like he'd just run a marathon, Nagisa collected himself and realized he had landed fairly ridiculously in the street. With a groan, Nagisa grabbed his broken phone and pocketed it, not looking forward to the lecture he was sure to receive when he returned home. Letting out a long, calming sigh, Nagisa pushed himself up and immediately landed back down on his rear. His shoe was stuck in a storm drain. _Great_.

Nagisa attempted to wiggle his shoe free, to no avail. He pulled, tried a different angle and a variety of other things, but his foot was so firmly wedged in the drain he almost couldn't figure out how it had gotten so stuck in the first place.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nagisa saw a truck turn the corner. It was coming his way, and fast, but Nagisa wasn't worried. The driver would see his predicament. After all, this wasn't a highway, it was practically a residential street.

The closer the truck got, the more nervous Nagisa became. _Why _wasn't the driver slowing down? When he looked again, his heart froze in his chest. The driver couldn't see him. The truck was gaining speed, wheels turning back and forth, causing it to careen wildly. The driver had lost control of the vehicle. And Nagisa was directly in its path.

The realization sank in like a freezing cold dagger in his spine. He was going to die.


	4. Chapter 4

Everything seemed incredibly surreal. The rumbling sound of the truck vibrating on pavement was drowning everything else out, including the shouts from a couple of passersby from across the street who were witnessing the event. Nagisa was too frozen to notice. He barely felt it when arms circled around his chest and yanked him up and out of the street, his ankle twisting as he came free of the drain.

Incredibly vibrant blue eyes were taking up his field of vision, and someone was talking to him, but Nagisa was in a fog. It took several moments before sounds and color and reality came crashing back to a normal pace, and Nagisa realized with abrupt clarity that he was kneeling on a sidewalk, there were worried-looking people surrounding him in a circle, and his ankle was burning with pain, all in that order.

"Are you okay?" The owner of the incredibly blue eyes was staring into Nagisa's face, searching for reassurance, and finally Nagisa willed himself to speak.

"I- Uhh, um. Yes?" Nagisa sputtered. "What happened?"

"Haru!" Another voice rang from outside the ring of onlookers, and a tall, broad-shouldered brunette was shoving his way through. Nagisa remembered him from the opening assembly. "Is everyone alright?!" His gaze moved to Nagisa, face etched in concern. "We saw you fall, but we didn't think… If Haru hadn't been so _quick_...!"

Nagisa was starting to put the pieces together; his brain felt like it had short-circuited and was still in the process of re-booting.

"You saved me?" Nagisa asked, shifting his weight to try and stand. The blue-eyed, raven-haired hero grabbed Nagisa's arm, keeping him firmly in place.

"Don't move. I think your ankle's broken."

Nagisa looked down. His shoe was missing. He turned to see it smashed to nothing in the street behind them, tire tracks running a line through it like something out of a cartoon. He stared for longer than was necessary. _That was almost me_.

"Hey, are you alright? Do you need us to call an ambulance?" the taller second-year was asking, and Nagisa quickly snapped back to reality.

"Uhh, no! No, I don't think my ankle's broken… It hurts, but I think it's just twisted…" He hoped that was true, but he was finding it hard to care either way at the moment.

The brunette groaned, heaving a deep, relieved breath. "I'm so glad nothing horrible happened… To _think_, if we hadn't been over here to visit Rin…" He shook his head, smiling gently. "Where do you live?" the taller boy asked, kneeling next to Haru. "Should you call someone to come get you?"

Nagisa remembered the broken phone that was still sitting in his pocket. He cringed.

"Ehh… I live real close by, I think I can make it there okay."

"That's stupid," Haru said, his expression unmoving aside for a slight narrowing of the eyes and a twitch of his brow. "Even if your ankle's _not _broken, you can't go walking on it until you get it looked at."

"He's right," the taller boy agreed. He turned his back to Nagisa, still kneeling, pulling back his massive shoulders. "If you live close by, then this isn't a problem, right?"

Nagisa regarded the gesture with complete confusion until it finally hit him. "Oh. Oh! Are you _sure_? I mean, I don't even know you, that seems like such a bother," Nagisa laughed.

The boy looked back with a gentle smile. "I'm Tachibana Makoto. And this is Nanase Haruka."

Haruka merely blinked in reply. Makoto rolled his shoulders invitingly. "Come on, it's really no trouble. Just point us in the direction of your house."

Although it was slightly awkward, Nagisa grabbed Makoto's shoulders tightly and stabilized himself just as Makoto stood up, hands slung under the bend of Nagisa's knees to keep him upright. Nagisa winced as shooting pains raced from his ankle to his knee.

"Are you okay?" Haruka asked softly, noticing. Makoto was reassuring the slowly dispersing crowd that Nagisa "-is fine, _really_, just a twisted ankle, we'll take him back home safely," which Nagisa was grateful for because after everything was said and done, he felt mildly foolish. He smiled feebly.

"Yeah... The pain's just kind of catching up with the rest of me."

"You be sure to tell us if it gets worse," Makoto said sternly. "Which way?"

"That way," Nagisa pointed, and smiled. "And I'm Hazuki Nagisa, by the way."

.

.

.

Nagisa's mother was arriving home from work when the odd trio marched up to the house. She had naturally been surprised to see her son being carried on the back of a boy she'd never met before, but as soon as they filled her in on what had happened, she was so grateful to Haruka that she very nearly hugged him, (_tearfully_, which had caused Haruka to glow with the most acute expression of embarrassment Nagisa had ever witnessed,) and insisted that he let her do something for him to show her gratitude. Haruka resolutely refused, insistent that he didn't want any thanks or fuss. As they were leaving, Makoto casually mentioned Haruka's undying love of mackerel, and Nagisa was _sure _he saw a twinkle of understanding between Makoto and his mother before the boys said their goodbyes and departed.

The hospital was Nagisa's least favorite place. He hadn't been to a hospital in some time, not since he'd split his knee open on the coffee table in a freak (and completely unavoidable) couch-gymnastics accident when he was 11. The doctor had thankfully been very accommodating, and after having taken xrays and declaring his ankle sprained, he asked, curiously, how the incident occurred. Nagisa explained everything; the cat, the storm drain, the truck, and his rescue.

"_Well_," the doctor said, chuckling in wonder as he jotted down some notes for the nurse, "that sounds like a stroke of really bad luck. Good thing it wasn't more than a sprained ankle."

Nagisa hadn't thought of it as 'bad luck' until then. He had placed it firmly in the _good _luck category, a fortuitous event that could have ended very badly but _didn't_. He recalled the black cat in the tree. He supposed there was no greater symbol of misfortune than that, and combined with the conveniently rogue murder truck, it certainly appeared like bad luck at its most potent, the more he considered it.

He left with an ankle brace and a pair of crutches that he was instructed to use for no more than a few days. Nagisa was fine with that; hobbling to the car was awkward and vaguely challenging, and Nagisa couldn't wait to be rid of them.

His sister smothered him with a suffocating embrace the moment he walked through the door, (all-around being just as obnoxious as usual, but with a bit more gentle sincerity, which Nagisa always appreciated,) and spent the evening fussing over her brother in the most out-of-character ways imaginable. Both of his other big sisters called the house during dinner, speaking to him in high-pitched baby voices of admiration as one might talk to a 4-year old who has just skinned his knee. (_You didn't have to call _everyone_, dad_, Nagisa thought.) By the time Nagisa finished dinner, he was too overwhelmed and exhausted to even keep his eyes open or entertain the idea of homework.

Laying in bed, Nagisa mulled over his day. Reflecting on everything in the silence of his cozy, safe room was incredibly dreamlike. The doctor's words were prominent in his mind, bringing older conversations to the surface, namely the conversation he'd had with Hibiki after the opening assembly.

Nagisa turned onto his side, struggling to find a comfortable position. The pain meds prescribed by the doctor left his ankle with nothing more than a dull, throbbing ache.

Could it all have been left up to luck? Good luck, bad luck, curses… Did those things exist? It was easy to say yes, and Nagisa had always _wanted _to believe in serendipitous events and other-worldly forces, but it was all for fun. It wasn't a subject he spent any length of time considering as factual. But now, he was having a hard time pushing it out of his mind.

Nagisa sighed and shut his eyes. It didn't matter, anyway. If there was any kind of curse surrounding Rei Ryugazaki, it wouldn't be affecting Nagisa. Rei had said it himself, they _weren't_ friends.

Nagisa was just the boy who had his pencil case. With that thought, Nagisa slipped into sleep.

.

.

.

**Author's Note:**

I'm so so sorry I haven't been updating this fic over here! I started posting it on AO3, and since it's been much more viewed and reviewed there, I keep forgetting that I'm not posting new chapters here on . Over the next few days I'll post the next couple of chapters for you all uwu


End file.
